Revenge12 min read
Lotus Porridge, Red Cloth, and the Knife That Slipped
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I woke on the yellowwood bed and blinked at the light. Five girls bowed and leaned in like a single fan when I spoke.
"Jordan," I said, and one of them, Jillian, smiled with all her teeth. "Tell spring to water the outer garden."
"Miss Jordan is as graceful as a willow," Jillian said.
"Flatterer," I replied.
"Not at all, miss. The truth."
I toyed with the small mirror my father had given me. It was smooth, clearer than the common polished bronze, a foreign thing that showed my face without lie. My brows arched like willow leaves; my eyes were black and bright; my lips a pale curve. Father loved beautiful things—he had always been one of them—and so I had his face but not his tastes.
"Miss, I saw Master send things to the new scholar's house this morning," Jazlynn said, lowering her voice. "Is that strange? The new scholar has been saying unpleasant things about your father."
"Some things you girls do not need to know," I said.
"But tell us something," she insisted.
My father, Byron Vargas, was powerful, and yes, many called him a corrupt minister. I answered their whispers with the same smile I used to pay court: indifferent, bright, useful. To me his power meant safety and advantage. In a courtyard full of old men, a handsome father was a warm cloak.
Outside, the courtyard was full of flowers. I walked past the artificial hill; the water over its rocks sang like coins spilling.
"Water-Water, there you are," a familiar voice chimed. "Come taste my new pastry."
I reached out and dropped the cake into the pond without tasting it. Fish swarmed, greedy and happy.
"Mind yourself," Jillian warned.
"Yes, yes," I said. "Song missus is here—no need to dally."
I had more important matters. Yesterday the Crown Prince, Cillian Winter, sent a messenger to return our engagement. I had invited him to our house to explain. The prince was gentle-looking, finely made and silly in ways only a woman used to men with power could feel pity for. He said the most foolish things sometimes.
He did not come on time. He had the sort of manner men raised on kindly indulgence have: a slanting charm and the certainty that the world would rearrange for them.
"You are late," I told him when he did come. He sat before me with a slight cough.
"Why end the engagement?" I asked.
He smoothed his sleeve. "I love another. If you do not mind being a side wife, perhaps—"
I could not help laughing. "Who is she?"
"She is a simple woman, Alyssa—cooks, nothing like you."
"You want to marry a cook," I said.
"She is...different. She saved me once. I want that feeling."
"You are such a child," I said softly and began to think how to turn that child into a piece on my board. I had not been raised merely to sit prettily; I had been sharpened like a tool. If he wished to throw away a throne to follow a feeling, I could either stop him or ride the wind his folly made.
Two days later I sat by the lotus pond, and Jillian fed me news.
"The prince frequents Drunken Immortal Inn," she said. "He keeps visiting a new cook. Her name is Alyssa Bonner."
"Alyssa?"
"Yes. Her father is a drinking man. She nearly died last month and came back, and her porridge is said to be miraculous. She earns coin at the inn and lifted business. The prince saw her there."
"Find her," I said. "Let's see who would steal my future husband."
She came, pale and blunt. "I had a daughter once. I took her to beg at a door—"
"Stop," I cut in. "When you say a thing like that, you do not need the theatrics."
"I am your half-sister!" Melanie Cohen cried, grasping my sleeve with the earnestness of a woman who had nothing to lose.
"You are what?"
"Our mother was a midwife—the night your mother died—"
"Keep to the facts."
"She claims you were the one they took away. That the real daughter was left at a doorway. People were bribed. I married here to come find you and help our family. Father will not allow us coin."
She folded in on herself. I listened while the story leaked out like a wound.
"Bring the midwife," I ordered. "And have her watched."
"Yes, Miss," Jillian said.
Melanie left with a pocket of silver. Her face was beautiful in a cheap way; she had the sort of fluttering eyes that let men make vows and break them without trouble. For the moment she was useful. I sent Jillian to find Monica Bloom—our midwife. Secrets that involve children are always dangerous. They can make or unmake a house.
That afternoon I went to the Drunken Immortal. It smelled of oil and ginger. Alyssa Bonner stood behind a counter and flung a bowl of lotus porridge like a prayer.
"You cook," I said, watching her work.
"Do I have to look pretty?" she snapped, and the irritation in her voice was a fresh thing. "If you like my porridge, eat. If not, shove off."
"She has spice in both temper and hands," Jillian said quietly. "Someone likes her well enough."
The prince arrived, ill and feverish. Alyssa brought him broth. They embarrassed me with their simplicity. He spoke to her with a tenderness that was almost vulgar in its lack of calculation.
"I wish to wed her," Cillian said in the hall of our house later, as if announcing theft. "She saved me from sickness. I choose her."
"You can not choose alone," I answered. "An engagement is not yours only."
"I will tell the Emperor," he said. "I will—"
"Two days, then," I told him. "At the Mid-Autumn banquet, wear red."
He blushed, awkward as a boy, and left. I had a plan.
When the sun fell the city swelled with the Mid-Autumn banquet. Lanterns were like a harvest of eyes. I sat among the ladies and watched. Alyssa was brought as the prince's guest, but she had no place. At last a woman with a rival spirit asked Alyssa to perform. The prince stood for her like a man who had forgotten how to be sensible.
"Bring her up," the woman said.
Alyssa stood up, small and fierce, and asked for a carrot and a knife. She carved a scene of Chang'e escaping to the moon and made the whole court laugh and applaud.
Then the prince stood, took her hand, and declared, "Father, I will marry Alyssa Bonner."
"Do you know what you say?" the Emperor asked, the room grown suddenly thin.
"Yes," Cillian answered. "I love her."
The Emperor left in a rage. The banquet ended with whispers and cold eyes. I smiled like a person who knows where the game is going. I made calls. I asked my father to speak, to be seen as "reasonable." I had been planning not only to be his wife, but to be useful. I had a place I wanted—closer, safer; the prince's hand would give me connection to the highest corridor of power.
When rumors spread the next day about a drunken man who swore the cook was actually the true lady of our house, I moved like a spider. Rumor can be used like wind: to push a small boat in the direction you want. But I was careful. Monica Bloom, the midwife, was found and locked. Melanie Cohen cried like a woman whose ribs had been split and offered me favors and names. I gave them coin and silence. Monica begged, eyes wide; she had been poor and foolish and sold a story once for money.
"Forgive me," she wailed.
"You need money," I told her. "Pay it now."
She paid in coin and in the shaking of her hands. She was not worth a long story. I returned to my pond and found Alyssa sitting on the edge, a bowl of porridge in her lap.
"You have a red mark on your neck," I said once, seeing a birthmark like a small smear of dusk. "Is it true your life was saved?"
They said she had been dead once. I thought about that and then about how men loved miracle stories. The prince adored miracles.
The Emperor's health waned. Winter came early. I married Cillian at the feast of red, and I learned the tenderness of people who believed one another foolish things. He was sweet and clumsy; he could be useful. Draven Cobb watched, or rather, he waited. Draven was not one of my first concerns. He was the son of an ambitious house—sharp, practiced at books and at knives hidden in smiles. Draven bowed to me one afternoon in the gardens.
"You have moved well," he said.
"Thank you," I said. "You have ambitions, I suppose."
"Everyone has ambitions," he murmured. "Even you."
A winter so cold came down that the Emperor died in the long night. The city shook. In the confusion, Draven made his move. He rode with soldiers into the palace, his men painted with the authority of steel and oath. He took the throne and declared himself protector; his voice was high on the dais. It was a small, neat coup—too neat, like a finely cut diamond. I was beneath him in the hall, watching.
"Why would you do this?" I asked when he looked at me.
"You helped me," he said. "You cut a path with your father's name. I take the next step."
He overreached. He had not understood how many hands had already reached into the bowl of the dead Emperor. Soldiers moved like they had been waiting. Men who had been silent had been listening. My father, Byron Vargas, gathered allies in a way that made Draven's neat plan fray like a cheap robe.
The night of his triumph turned into the crowd's morning. His soldiers were not the city guard. They were strangers brought from borders to look loyal. But the city guard had numbers, and numbers speak at the gate like thunder.
The moment he lost control, he attempted to hang onto the throne by threatening the little boy heir. He was angry and becoming frantic. I made the choice I always make: to pick the stronger branch. I called to my allies—guard captains, officers who counted what bills would be paid next quarter. They came, not because of me but because of their calculations. Draven found himself outmaneuvered. He had no grain for his soldiers, and his promises could not feed men.
When his men were cut down or surrendered, Draven was dragged before the court. They tore his robe and placed an old, cheap sash around his shoulders. They shoved him to the center of the hall where once the Emperor had sat.
"Who put you on the throne?" I asked. "You who think a crown is a thing to be seized, not earned."
He spat. "You," he said. "You and your father's whispering. It is your world."
"Is that so?" I stepped forward. "Then let the world see what your world has given you."
They stripped his claim to titles. The Herald read aloud a litany of his crimes and betrayals. A man who had once smiled like a knife now trembled like a child. The crowd pressed in, the ladies closed their fans, the old ministers smoothed their sleeves. His face moved: first shock, then anger, then denial, then a rising panic as the reality of the room closed over him.
"You will speak," the Chancellor said. "We bear witness to the truth."
They forced him to kneel. He tried to laugh. "You cannot—"
They produced letters he'd written, promises he had made, names he'd betrayed. A deputy brought forward a table of witnesses who had been men he had paid and then abandoned. They read phone-thin evidences—excuse me, parchment—one by one. The crowd grew louder: some gasped, some whispered, some laughed.
"Is this true?" the Chancellor asked.
Draven stammered. "Some—some of it is—no—"
A jeer ran through the room. A woman near the front, a mother who had lost sons to his soldier's blade, stepped forward. "You stole our bread and called it redistribution," she said. "You call yourself protector; you left children to starve."
"This is preposterous," Draven hissed. "You set me up."
"I set you up?" the mother spat. "You set yourself up."
He slumped. Denial crumbled into bargaining—he offered money, titles, an alliance. "I will give you lands," he begged. "I will—"
The court was merciless. He saw children press against rails, tilting their heads, eyes bright. They pointed. Noble ladies snapped fans and hissed. Scribes wrote everything down and men with small leather straps took pictures. The Emperor's old allies watched with faces made of stone. Masters who had once courted him now stepped away. His proud posture bled into a small, broken man whispered about between the columns.
They sentenced him to public disgrace. In the square beyond the palace walls they unrolled a stage. There, in the open sun, his robes were torn, badges removed, his hair smeared with mud. The Herald announced his crimes loud enough for the market to hear: betrayal, attempted regicide, theft, the murder of soldiers for profit. He was made to confess each in a voice that began proud and ended thin.
"Confess," the Herald commanded.
"I—" He swallowed. "I took what I could." Then, "I was promised—"
"To whom?" the Herald demanded.
He named names that only widened the list. Then he tried to deny it, to bargain again. Each step the crowd took a step closer: merchants, children, servants, a priest or two. Phones—no, scribes—scratched every line. The faces around him shifted from curiosity to contempt to raw hunger for a spectacle. Men who had nodded at him now spat on the ground as he walked by.
When he begged for mercy, the man who had lost a son to his hand stepped up. "You spoke of protection," he said. "Where was your mercy when my house burned?"
Draven's eyes bulged. "I did not—"
"You did," the man said. "And now we will watch you unravel."
They made him stand on a low platform and humiliate him publicly. They cut his hair short, paraded him through the market streets with signs listing his deeds, and placed him at the center while people threw rotten fruit. A woman flung an empty bowl at him and cried, "Remember the child!" Some laughed. Others slammed doors in his face. Friends who had not yet turned their backs now turned away like stairs being retreated.
He lost color as the day wore on: first red, then white, then a gray sullen hue as if the life in him had been pressed out. At one point he lunged, anger making him stupid, and a soldier pushed him down. "Stop!" he shouted; then at the sight of his own blood, he went quiet.
What I saw, and what the crowd saw, was the unmaking of a man who had thought himself made of iron. His arrogance was stripped bare, and the public had its fill. They did not hang him publicly, but his name would not hold weight again. He was a cautionary tale told to children. In the weeks that followed, his family lost positions, patrons left, and his estates were confiscated. Those who had once sided with him were punished in smaller, crueler ways: fines, loss of housing, social ostracism. The midwife Monica Bloom was brought before the same court.
"Why did you exchange the babies?" an official demanded.
"I—" Monica shook. "Poverty. I was bribed."
"Show us the coin," the Herald snapped.
She produced the money, counting aloud like a condemned woman recounting a debt. People around her hissed and threw her money into the dirt. They shaved her head and paraded her as well, but softer: she was forced to stand in the market square with a sign about her crime and work the latrine for a month. It was a humiliation calibrated to her level: public, relentless, spoken.
Melanie Cohen received another fate. She was not dragged through the square; instead, she was exposed in the grand hall. Advisors read aloud the letters she had sent to merchants asking for favor. The women in the hall watched while her calls for help were published and judged. She was dismissed from our household with nothing but the small bundle she had when she arrived. She left, head bent; the crowd outside the gate watched her go—silent, but with a kind of approval that made her cheeks burn.
Each punishment differed. Draven's was public physical degradation and social annihilation. Monica's was public menial labor and constant shame. Melanie's was public exposure and exile. Different falls for different sins. Justice, the kind of justice that satisfies a city, often demands spectacle. My part in all this was not to revel too loudly. I had to hold my place.
After the dust settled, life rearranged itself. The prince, Cillian, lost his will and his right leg to an accident; sometimes I thought of that as consequence more than fate. He lay in bed and called for Alyssa, who became his nurse and then his comfort—then his target of his petulant affections. He grew bitter, blaming her. She fled his storms and asked me to help her leave and open a shop. I said I would help.
They called me the dangerous woman after all this, but the little Emperor—the new child king—ran to me in the garden and asked me, "What is a traitor?"
"A traitor is someone who thinks a crown is a thing to be grabbed," I told him. He said, "But you're not a traitor." I smiled and said nothing.
Spring came and with it small kindnesses. I kept making lotus porridge because the taste of it steadied me. Cillian, who had once been my prize or my burden, became quieter and easier to handle. Alyssa left when she could, and the market whispered that her small inn did well. Draven Cobb's name was used as a lesson for years. Monica Bloom scrubbed floors in another county until the shame shrank into a memory. Melanie Cohen swore never to return.
I walked sometimes to the pond with my maid Jillian and said, "If anyone asks, we will say we are content."
Jillian said, "But you are not, are you?"
I threw a pinch of porridge into the water and watched the fish rise. "No," I admitted. "I am not content. Contentment is a luxury for people who accept their lot. I will not. But the city will sing about this winter for years."
When the new Emperor saw me at court months later, he tugged my sleeve and asked, "Is your lotus porridge sweet today?"
"It is," I answered, and he smacked his lips like a child. People laughed, and the sound of their amusement rolled through the hall like a wave.
My hands still smelled of ginger and ash. My father kept a place at the table because old men prefer a familiar puppet to a chaotic new hand. Power is a long game and people forget how quickly the board shifts.
One evening I sat by the pond. Alessan—no, the man once called Cillian—brought a bowl of lotus porridge from Alyssa's new inn and stood a little off. He looked smaller than before, but he kept his chin. He had been broken, and he had learned that love could be a cold thing if given without thought.
"Jordan," he said, softly, "why did you do all that?"
I looked at him. "Because I wanted to live in a world where I am not at the mercy of noise. Because I am tired of being powerless. Because a stupid prince and a talented cook deserve their fates, and I deserve mine."
He smiled sadly. "Is this love?"
"I do not know. But a well-made porridge is something the world cannot take away." He laughed, and so did I.
On a market morning, a boy ran up and gave me a scrap of paper. On it was drawn a small lotus flower and the words: "For your porridge." I folded it into my pocket and kept stepping forward, as one always must.
The End
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